Comments

1
As a veteran of this movement, there's another key piece, which I'm not sure Solomon mentions here, though I know it was key especially in the immediate aftermath of Prop 8: Never give up. Don't internalize defeat. Don't assume that just because you lost an election that your cause is lost too. Pick yourself back up, learn from your mistakes - meaning have an honest conversation with yourself and your movement about why you lost - so you figure out what has to happen next time. If that work hadn't been happening between December 2008 and, say, the summer of 2010, we wouldn't have seen marriage come back and win the way it did. Everything else Solomon is quoted as saying here is good too. But it began with a refusal to quit or whine or mope or complain.
2
“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien

As to be hated needs but to be seen;

Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
3
Counting our chicks before they are hatched, are we...

The "victory" is a stolen illusion delivered by tyrants in black robes.

We've been here before; the "victory" of abortion. How is that working out for you?

You can legalize perversion but you can't make it not be perversion.
4
Not sure how translatable the marriage equality movement is to other progressive causes. For one thing, it's not been "the biggest civil rights victory of the new century" unless you conveniently overlook the fact that it began almost 50 years ago, and has been roundly mocked for all but the last five. I quite agree with Junipero that one of the keys to success here was to never give up no matter the odds.

Another factor is the decentralized nature of the LGBT community itself. The only thing that unites gay people is our common experience of oppression. The amazing diversity of the LGBT community is its greatest strength, and that has been effectively harnessed in the ME campaign. This was not an issue that the marquee community groups like HRC embraced at first, no matter how much they'd like to spin it now. It came about because individual gay and lesbian couples sought justice for themselves and told their stories. They made it personal, and understandable.

Oh, and the Internet and social networking had just a *bit* to do with it, too. An often overlooked factor.
5
@2: Yes yes, I'm sure eventually we'll grow fond of you, never you fret.
6
@4 I see your point but you are forgetting the very thing that took marriage equality over the top. We came out and said we are your family.

Why can't that work for say income inequality? We are your family and we can't live on this shit wage. We are your family and we are insulted that Walmart, McDonald's and other employers tell us to go on the government dole to make up for what they refuse to pay us. We are your family don't we deserve to be able to eat, pay the rent, the utilities etc and still save just a little after a long work day?

Will it work idk but worth as much as a try as anything else.
7
This progressive victory ultimately has no negative financial consequences for rich people or large corporations.



And that's why we've been allowed to have it.



Racial justice or equality for women have a heavy price tag attached, and rightfully so.



These issues will be fought not just by the christianist wing of the GOP but the financial elites too.



These victories will not come so easily,

Please wait...

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